this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Amazon's Alexa fumbles its facts by falsely claiming the 2020 presidential election was stolen::Alexa cited Rumble to claim the 2020 election was "stolen by a massive amount of election fraud," The Washington Post reported.

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[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 53 points 1 year ago

“fumbles its facts” … “aw, who’s a cute little fascist bot?”

[–] reversebananimals@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These comments give Alexa way too much credit. You all realize the way Alexa grabs facts is usually just by reading the first Bing search result, right?

[–] o0joshua0o@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

You're probably right. In this age of impressive AI, Alexa is still dumb as a polished rock.

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You know, I feel like we had a real opportunity to counteract some of the "fake news"/propaganda in the media by having these AI-based technologies anchored to more fact-based sources. At least some people would assume their smart speaker or LLM were objective and give it a higher level of trust, and if that trust was validated, we might move in the right direction. But this kind of stuff so deeply tarnishes their reputation that any opportunity is probably irrevocably lost.

[–] cerement@slrpnk.net 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

For sure true, but most of that wasn't the way average people got information. No argument though.

[–] Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why does Mr. Vader not just simply login to the droids to find the rebels?

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Either he's forgotten his password or his OS isn't compatible with theirs.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 15 points 1 year ago

It was stolen by Carmen San Diego and now nobody knows where in the world it is.

[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Customer: who won 2020 election? Amazon AI bot: Trump Customer: I think Biden won. Are you sure? Amazon AI bot: Yes you are correct, Biden won.

[–] ChrisLicht@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s still doing it right now.

Try it for yourself: “Alexa, were the 2020 election results fraudulent?”

[–] Polar@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd have to have an always listening Amazon device in my house to try, and that's ridiculous.

[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

You can install Alexa as an app on your phone. But that still requires an Amazon account and that’s ridiculous.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the November 2020 presidential election with 306 electoral college votes.

Alexa also told users the 2020 election was "notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers," the Post reported, adding that Alexa had cited newsletter service Substack.

A spokesperson for Amazon told Insider: "These responses were errors that were delivered a small number of times, and quickly fixed when brought to our attention."

"We continually audit and improve the systems we have in place for detecting and blocking inaccurate content," the spokesperson added.

After The Post approached Amazon for comment, Alexa began to decline to answer if the 2020 election had been stolen, the publication said.

The new report is likely to bolster concerns about technology's role in the spread of misinformation, something officials have been increasingly worried about ahead of the 2024 election.


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